Lux Mondo and Powersystem 1500

[turbomaster1984]

Ryan Sebofan mentioned somewhere in another thread somewhere that he had once owned a Mondo.

Of all the cylinders in the late 90's I saw for sale the Mondo was the one I always wanted so fast forward to 2009 we saw this in a rather minging state in a junk shop so for the sum of £3 we brought it home and gave it a scrub up.

Just the hose so I have had to 'borrow' the Dolphins chrome extension pole and the Microlites floor tool.

After all these years had assumed this was the BOL model due to the flex storage method but something tells me there was an 1100w maybe even a 1000w version in another colour.
This one is 1300w.

Suction is incredible and easily somewhere near the 1600-1800w setting on a Miele and thats with a paper bag fitted not a synthetic bag.

Relatively quiet compared to most modern day screamers.

It almost feels like a Little Tykes vac with the chunky softish plastic but then thats quite nice considering most modern plastics used today. Certainly feels like no toy lol but then those LT vacs were quite well made haha.

Ironic that its lives beside its TOL upright partner of the time the Powermaster 1500w.

Bagged or bagless, you decide it came with options to use both. Bag door is somewhere in this house Paul???? Using it as a daily driver at the minute BAGLESS OMG I hear you say. Tut. Dont even get into that arguement PLEASE. ta.

Brilliant brushroll for grooming, pet hair pick up(that dog!) and surface cleaning but yes it does lack grit removal. Hardfloor cleaning is superb.

Quiet on the ears and easy to use. Nice long hose although its original tools are lacklustre when it comes to using them. Hose also allows for stair cleaning and I have yet to have it topple over when stretching.

 

[turbomaster1984]

BOL but not so quite compared to some offerings of the time with no cord storage slots or anything.

 

[turbomaster1984]

upright bagless.

 

[turbomaster1984]

pet hair offender.

 

[ryry_87]

My nan won the yellow Mondo just like yours in a competition on the side of a fag packet in about 1998. I had the TOL one with the push button variable power and LED display. One of my favourite 90s cylinders, was powerful, quiet and lovely to use...

 

[vintagerepairer]

The Mondo was a smart cleaner but the very basic model had such a flimsy on/off switch and I repaired a good deal of those in my time. The original basic models had plastic tubes but these used to split with alarming frequency and were replaced with metal for all models before the range was finally discontinued. I liked the Power System cleaner very much, it was one of the very best cleaners available at that time, assuming that one used the paper bag option. The cyclone cylinder was poor. These were the first of what time has proven to be a good deal of attempts to attract customers away from Dyson.

 

[jmurray01]

Nothing sucks like an Electrolux!

 

[turbomaster1984]

Thanks for that input Jamie.

Valuable contribution as always.

 

[jmurray01]

"Thanks for that input Jamie.

Valuable contribution as always." Glad you thought so!

 

[turbomaster1984]

Is that all you have to contribute?

Perhaps you are quite wise and knowledgeable, not having your email address visible to other members shows this. Maybe it would be full of emails politely requesting various things.

Here's my request: unless its of quality information or a timely contribution then dont bother.

Thanks.

 

[vintagerepairer]

Good grief, how quickly things turn so very, very sour.

 

[jmurray01]

I was surprised by this too Benny, I thought Robert was being lighthearted when he said "valuable contribution as always", but seems not.

I think I'll keep my mouth shut in future, this is the last I'll post in this thread.

 

[fantomlightning]

Well then...

It seems to have become very catty and bitchy around here over the past few months....

 

[vacuumfreeeke]

We had that upright in the early 2000s... it was sold as a blue Kenmore even though it was made by Eureka... People hated it when I sold vacs at Sears. It was super heavy and the plastic parts seem to break if you looked at it cross eyed.... the dirt chamber wouldn't stay in, and the hose wouldn't say in the hook, much like an old Eureka Smart Vac...

I did like the variable power control right on the handle, but that was about it. Ours had a headlight I think... does that one? They later sold it as an Electrolux Aptitude and made it bagged and orange (the blue Kenmore was bagless like yours), but it got terrible reviews.

 

[eurekaprince]

Hey Bobby....I think that Electrolux upright was first seen in North American stores as a 120volt Eureka Oxygen bagged upright in a light blue. This was in stores when Electrolux started selling Eureka-branded Oxygen canisters (including one with a Eureka Express power nozzle).

I remember taking a look to see the brand plate on the Oxygen upright and noticing that it was actually a Eureka made in the UK!!!! I thought that was really cool. Consumer Reports gave it only a "good" rating for carpet cleaning at a time when Panasonic made Kenmore Progressive uprights were rated excellent in carpet cleaning.

 

[sebo_fan]

 


Rob - I did have two of the Mondo "E" base yellow models and they both came with the half moon topped suction only floor head instead of the 2 way pedal floor head as standard. One model had an older yellow bin release button on it and a smaller power on button; the newer Mondo E had a better one, as shown in your photo and a bigger on button. Compared to the higher end models, the Mondo E was made in Poland and none of them had piston bag valves as clearly can be seen in your photo where it has been blanked out. There were two models: 1150 E and 1151 E, both came with around 5 metres length of power cord compared to more on the higher end models and a clip on hose attachment with 2/3 storage points for the tools, a design feature that was applied to ALL the Mondo series because there was never a place on board the machine to put the tools on. The Mondo E was my favourite out of all the models - as you say and quite rightly - they are very quiet in use and also I believe, better made even if the cord storage thing was a bit of a faff - and whilst there was a 1300 watt version, there was also an 1100 watt version.


 


The problem with the higher end Mondo's (and I lived with a girl who had the 1400 watt version of the Mondo that Ry-Ry shows here but with a slider suction control and a blue/black colour, also known as "Smart Vac") was that the filter door at the front was inclined to blow off in use, if it didn't click down properly. This seemed to happen regularly on longer term owned models where the click lock from the plastic and its corresponding hole began to weaken and since those models were fitted with higher features, the filter cover was made smaller compared to the larger, better fitting one on the base models. Eureka in the U.S had the Mondo bodies too and there was also a commercial version too, whilst Volta in other countries sold the base Mondo E in red.


 


TBH at the time of purchase there were better cylinder vacs on the market - Hoover's Arrianne and Telios models were both on the market by then, offering either auto cord rewind and in the Telios case, on board tool storage/under a flap as well as bag full indicators and usually, variable suction control/slider. I eventually replaced one of the Mondo E's with a Hoover Telios. I did buy the Z2305 model in later years too, known as the Electrolux Mondo Plus, used the same dust bag and on board storage under a flap, but had terrible build quality compared to the Polish versions and a lot noisier.


 

 

[vintagerepairer]

Sebofan, when you say the tool caddy was attached to the hose, it was in fact attached to the extension tubes. Is this what you mean? It was a poor idea, because the caddy did not slip over the tube, it actually pushed inside one tube, with the hose or other tube pushing into the top of it. It was a tight, wobbly fit. It did have the advantage at least that it could be easily removed if the user did not want it stuck to the tubes. The metal tube with the one in turbomasters picture here does not look like the tubes which I saw supplied with the basic Mondo as these did not taper at the top in quite the same way, it was just a pair of plain push fit metal tubes. This one in the picture looks like a telescopic set of tubes which I would assume came off another cleaner.

 

[sebo_fan]

Yes VR you are absolutely correct - the tool caddy was intended for the tubes but it also had the ability to go on the hose as well. I do recall it being wobbly but also not badly made. As for the tubes, I never had plastic tubes with my base Mondo E's yet - they came with the standard 2 part tubes with rubber inserts at the top to make them easier to remove when required. The floor head though was naff for hard floors though. 


 


My friend's Smart Vac came with silver telescopic stainless steel tubes, similar to the ones shown.

 

[rolls_rapide]

PowerSystem

I had the black version. It was fine as a bagged machine, but that cyclone cassette was a load of rubbish. Dust, fluff and grit got through to the large white filter on the back of the cassette, making for a very fiddly and messy emptying operation.